Help each person reflect on their own style, and hence have a better discussion about styles

Building the water cooler

A place where people informally gather to take a break, make small talk and share ideas

Serves an important social function

Informal rapport building that occurs at the “water cooler” helps them to communicate more effectively in more formal work settings

For remote teams, there may be no natural place to gather

Need to be proactive in creating such a place in a virtual setting (“digital water cooler”)

GChat, Facebook chat, Slack

Dedicate the first few minutes of meetings for social time

Be very intential about creating an environment of good communication, as remote teams have fewer natural opportunities to do this

Startup Teams

Dollar Shave:

Mark Levine and Michael Dublin dreamed up subscription service for discount razors delivered to doorstep

Company took off so quickly, they could barely keep pace with demand

Other startups aren’t so lucky. They can crash and burn, and you must scramble just to keep the lights on

It can feel like all your waking hours need to be focused on getting the work done

However, you still have to pay attention to the teams’ interpersonal relationships

A good cohesive team may be more important that having a great idea for a product or service

Good ideas happen all the time

What separates successful companies is the ability to implement the ideas

Create check points for adjusting your team dynamic. There are three types:

Engagement checkpoints

Establish times when you agree to check in on their level of involvement

The specific milestones depend upon their interests

e.g. hiring an administrative assistant who wants to work on coding software in the future, you might create a six-month checkpoint to discuss if that opportunity will actually open up for them

Problem checkpoints

Allow you to slow down from time to time and raise the yellow flag

Integrate (Jeremy Bloom)

Jeremry was more cautious, and he felt that his partner would often plough ahead, even when he was uncomfortable with the decision

Jeremy felt that his input was being ignored, so he created the “Yellow Flag” rating system

When the partners had to make a big decision, they would put a number on their level of their discomfort from 1 to 10

Quick way to surface disagreements, even when your team is moving at a fast pace

Pivot checkpoints

A pivot is when you realise that you need to make a significant change in strategy, because:

something about your product or idea works really well, and you need to emphasise it

or it’s failing, and you need to go in a different direction

Tote (shopping app by Ben Silbermann)

Tote failed to catch on, except for one feature everyone loved: an option to pin and share products they loved with their friends

Silbermann made a pivot, and relaunched with that single feature at its core, called “Pinterest”

2 years after launch, drawing 20 million visitors per month, valued at $1.5B.

At pivot checkpoint, decide if metrics require a change in strategy

When pivoting, set up a timeline and metrics to decide if new strategy is successful

Focus on creating built-in checkpoints that trigger discussions about your group dynamic

Product Development Teams

Group think is a major problem in product development teams

IDEO:

design thinking process

no precise framework for innovation

starts with the understanding the needs of the people you are trying to serve, and the questions to ask

The 6 core values of IDEO designers:

Be optimistic

believe that anything is possible

designers have the freedom to explore and collaborate

Clients are critical

they should be engaged at various points

Take ownership – ask for forgiveness, not permission

designers are free to experiment

Embrace anonymity as part of the process

the greater good of the team is more important than any individual contribution

Learn from failure

there is no such thing as failure, as long as you’re learning from it

Make other people successful

talk less, and do more

The goal is to get all the ideas on the table, and then to execute on them.

IDEO’s 6 principles

Defer judgement

Encourage wild ideas

Build on the ideas of others

Stay focused on the topic

Be visual

Go for quantity

there are no bad ideas

Sacrificial concept: a concept that may not make a lot of sense or is really basic, shared publicly to get help get as many other ideas out as possible

It is the large number of ideas (rather than any individual ideas) that make the process effective

Guidelines for setting roles within teams

What skill sets are needed for the project

Its initial goals

The project leader on the client side

Ideas happen on the intersection of desirability, feasibility and viability

Desirability: asking important questions about what people want when it comes to products.

Peoples needs can be broken up into 3 groups:

emotional

cognitive

physical

Feasibility: coming up with concepts based on insights from research

e.g. what are technical constraints that might present an issue?

Viability: an assessment of if it makes sense for business to implement the concepts

IDEO’s Research Methods for Product Development Teams

The Times newspaper came to IDEO with a problem in membership:

IDEO determined user experience issues was more important challenge to tackle in order to increase membership

After an in-depth research process, IDEO helped to come up with a concept that was desirable, feasible and viable.

Research methods

Customer interviews

e.g. if IDEO is researching refridgerators, they may go shopping with a customer, and ask them questions about their habits

Curious about the multi-layered context in which people live and eat

Allows capture of smaller and more precise details that might not come out in a survey

Analogous research

What are parallel organisations that might provide insight into my organisation’s challenge?

What are similar challenges others in the industry have overcome?

e.g. in creating a new Playstation game, IDEO researchers took Playstation players to a dance class. Asking questions about what problems they had, the researcher was able to infer similar problems that people new to gaming would have

Experts in the field

Interview those in similar or separate fields

Insights from the field, and possibly allow collaboration

3 methods allow triangulation and synthesise data in order to determine next steps

Allows developement of stories and setting of goals, roles and norms of product development effort

Design and prototype allows high quality feedback on initial design

Use methods to draw on others creativity, and ensuring they don’t shut down potentially valuable ideas and contribution

Methods provide a thorough and psychologically safe way to vet ideas

Key lessons:

ask the right questions

prototype your ideas

collect feedback

learn from failure

Committees

Committees: teams of people brought together for goals outside of their normal day job

Performance tends to suffer because of lack of engagement

High performance is possible if you align committee goals with personal goals

Common issues on committees:

Committee members have other obligations that often take a high priority

Committee members may not know the charge

aligning their own goals with the committee goals can be a challenge

Case study:

Committee in north-east US university

Comprised of faculty, staff and students

Charged to enhance campus and community life

Goal setting through a mix of charges from executives, and those set by the committee itself

People can set 3-5 short term goals per year

e.g. issues related to location of university, or the life of the university itself

e.g. research student health costs in theoperations of health insurance outside of the university

Deadlines for committee are not strict

Goals might roll over from year to year

Committment to goals is inspired by:

Opportunity to learn

Satisfaction of accomplishing goals

Opportunity to have a voice

Passion for the committee comes from the fulfillment of personal goals of committee members

There is potential for private interests to overtake the greater good of the group

Structured reflection allows the team to come up with a strategy to correct bias

e.g. outside surveys

Rules for checks and balances

Norms determine roles because committee roles are fluid depending upon who is on the committee, and what the task is

It is important to have a process for checking in

Norm Setting for Committees

4 strategies:

Pay attention to communication channels

Establish how you will communicate and how often

e.g. “communication will take place in person at monthly meetings, with occasional follow up by email”

Effective communication doesn’t mean you have to constantly communicate. Rather, when you are together, you are open to suggestions, ask questions and prevent miscommunication

Encourage information sharing

Members have different backgrounds

Need to understand what contextual information is needed to ensure mutual understanding

Take and share meeting minutes

Establish subcommittees

Allows committee members to maximise their limited time and focus in an area to make a high impact

Each subcommittee should establish their own goals, roles and norms, and align with the task at hand

Have respectful disagreements

be aware of the danger of minimising contributions from minorities, women, and other marginalised groups on committees

encouraging members to remain open to one another’s viewpoints

Get in the habit of saying “In my experience” before giving an opinion, which ensure the option is not assigned to the committee as a while